Stoke City old boy in emphatic backing of new manager Mark Robins
Charlie Adam hopes and believes that Stoke City have got the right manager in place now to turn the tide.
Adam, who spent seven years at the club as a player, reflected on a pivotal moment involving Mark Robins in early 2018 when he was asked on Sam Allardyce’s podcast about Stoke’s struggles – and is confident that Robins can now be the man at the other end to haul them back up.
A defeat at Robins’s then League Two Coventry in the FA Cup third round spelled the end of Robins’ old Manchester United teammate Mark Hughes and Stoke’s decade in the top flight was coming to an end. They have since been stuck in the bottom half of the Championship.
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Adam, when asked why Stoke were relegated on the latest episode of No Tippy Tappy Football: “He’ll probably assume it’s because I missed a penalty. I missed a penalty against Brighton and I take responsibility for that.
“There were a lot of things going on. Mark (Hughes) lost his job. We’d finished top 10 for three years. We got beat by Coventry and we were meant to fly to Dubai that night because after the FA Cup third round there was always a bit of a break. They cancelled it and he got sacked on the way home.
“We changed managers and you talk about characters in the dressing room and that was a tough period for the club. Unfortunately we ended up getting relegated and that’s a shame because Stoke, for me, is an unbelievable football club. They’ve got great people, the owners…
“It’s a shame where it is at the moment but what I do think is that they’ve got the right manager now. I like Mark Robins. He’s done a brilliant job at Coventry, he’s vastly experienced and I think he can take Stoke and really kick them on again.”
